Name: The Secret History
Rating: 4.27331340734415 (2342 reviews)
ISBN: 9781400031702

Donna Tartt

Richard Papen had never been to New England before his nineteenth year. Then he arrived at Hampden College and quickly became seduced by the sweet, dark rhythms of campus life – in particular by an elite group of five students, Greek scholars, worldly, self-assured, and at first glance, highly unapproachable.

The Secret History 

A transfer student from a small town in California, Richard Papen is determined to affect the ways of his Hampden College peers, and he begins his intense studies under the tutelage of eccentric Julian Morrow. BOMC & QPB Alt. Tour.

The Secret History

this book is genuinely all consuming , so so so so good. my favorite book tbh

nina

A misfit at an exclusive New England college, Richard finds kindred spirits in the five eccentric students of his ancient Greek class. But his new friends have a horrific secret. When blackmail and violence threaten to blow their privileged lives apart, they drag Richard into the nightmare that engulfs them. And soon they enter a terrifying heart of darkness from which they may never return.

A Holder

First half gets 5 stars, possibly a bit generously but maybe 4.5, second half could’ve been 150–200 pages shorter and tries far too hard to be emotionally intense, maybe 2–3 stars. If I have to hear one more time about Camilla’s eyes I am going to scream 🤠

Truly deserving of the accolade 'modern classic', Donna Tartt's novel is a remarkable achievement - compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful. Under the influence of their charismatic Classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality, their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

easily a contender for the prettiest prose ive read ever. the story  was unforgettable. SO good. i loved it so so much. I couldnt put it down at all. And the shocking dark twists it took were insane, so happy over the fact that they werent awfully obvious neither they had me so shocked. i wish the men in black wiped my memory so i could read it again on a january night.

Ahmer Nadeem

This is one of my favourite books . It is a beautiful psychological thriller and the perfect book for a person who loves the dark academia aesthetic. I am so devastated now that i finished it i am so sad about the fact that i spend so many beautiful hours reading this masterpiece and now it just finished . I am sad about the fact that i may not read something like this ever again but i am so glad that i took the opportunity to read it . Thank you so much Donna Tart for this masterpiece. I would love to read other perspectives other than the Richard's but i dont think that i will ever got the chance . It was one of the best books that i hav ever read .

natalia's_wiltedpages16

Richard Papen, a relatively impoverished student at a New England college, falls in with an exclusive clique of rich, worldly Greek scholars and soon learns the dreadful secret that keeps them together. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

appropriately hyped. to the detriment of my responsibilities, i couldn't put the book down and read the last 400 pages in one sitting.

alice

asmareads b

Absolutely love this and this is one of the few books id come back to over and over again 

Tiara Sharma

Vier jongens en een meisje vormen een exclusief groepje studenten klassiek Grieks aan een Amerikaans college waar hun experimenten met oude Griekse riten leiden tot twee moorden.

El secreto

kitkat

3’25⭐️ (?) En general me he quedado fría… La palabra concreta no es fria sino que no se como reaccionar al libro en si. Me ha gustado pero estoy confundida y con bastantes preguntas. Pensar que toda la historia es desde la perspectiva de Richard y que él mismo esta metido en todo, no sabes verdaderamente toda la historia.

The 30th anniversary edition of the bestseller that defined an age

'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

The book is ultimately about the danger of confusing beauty with goodness. 

I mean, it’s just crazy like I just think it’s such an epic book. No review can do it justice. You just have to go through the experience of reading it.

It is broken up into book 1 and 2. And there was a point in the second section where I thought that the author kind of straight away from the central goal, but I think that’s really because I did not understand what the central goal was. I think that I learned through this book to be not so plot focused. 

I also think that the sort of moral of the story is quite nuanced and I like that I feel like a dumb person cannot read this book and selfishly that makes me feel good about it but also I think it says something about the book maybe. 

Arhant Srivastava

The book is ultimately about the danger of confusing beauty with goodness. 

I mean, it’s just crazy like I just think it’s such an epic book. No review can do it justice. You just have to go through the experience of reading it.

It is broken up into book 1 and 2. And there was a point in the second section where I thought that the author kind of straight away from the central goal, but I think that’s really because I did not understand what the central goal was. I think that I learned through this book to be not so plot focused. 

I also think that the sort of moral of the story is quite nuanced and I like that I feel like a dumb person cannot read this book and selfishly that makes me feel good about it but also I think it says something about the book maybe. 

9/10

wow didnt that go to shit /pos. slides into ao3

charlowwe

i have this strangely pleasant feeling that i'll never actually find a book like this ever again... it was beautifully twisted and i loved it wholly, so perhaps beauty really is terror and i'll just have to come back again and again

yachii

Edwin Lang

A question that I am sure occurred to Donna Tartt, the author of The Secret History, as well as to anyone reading her novel is why would anyone want to read about five rich kids and one self-professed liar from California. It occurred to me on page 180. Strangely, the book is really compelling. The liar, Richard Papen, is now twenty-eight and narrating the story of what happened to him in his first year at Hampden, in picturesque Vermont, after having abandoned the West coast to study ancient Greek. He was then gloomy and melancholy and felt his existence, at twenty, had been tainted by friendlessness, a mean father, a distant mother, an ugly house, a haircut too short and the need to wear cheap clothes and by the general blandness of his Californian small town. Through persistence and something of a miracle he received a scholarship to attend Hampden. Almost immediately Richard is attracted to an idiosyncratic professor, Julian Morrow, offering classes in ancient Greek to a class-sized at five. Richard would be six and thus unacceptable. Nonetheless. he manages to beguile his way into this master class. Here he meets the clique: Henry Winter, protagonist, a taciturn and wealthy but brilliant classicist and linguist who never completed grade ten; the twins, Camilla and Charles McCauley, clean, graceful and cheerful Flemish angelic orphans who were raised by their domineering and rich grandparents; Francis Abernathy, a wealthy Bostonian, born to an unmarried teen mother, with both he and his mother subsequently raised by rich grandparents, reputed to be decadent (and gay) but a decent and sensitive fellow; and Edmund “Bunny” Corcoran, a successful banker’s son, one of five boys who is a former football star and today is a sloppy, loud, obnoxiously garrulous, gum-chewing (but pleasant) lout and who is the antagonist. The story really begins when as readers around page 170 we learn that four of them (Henry, the twins and Francis) go on a Bacchanal, and when in a drunken hallucogenic state, Henry accidently kills a man, a farmer who had aggressively demanded that the kids leave his property. I call them ‘kids’ because, although twenty or twenty-one years old, all are alone, even Richard and Bunny when they learn of the story, groping their way through this tragedy and catastrophe in their otherwise well-ordered and happy lives. Even Julian Morrow is no help, he who had seduced their minds with silly ideas, many of which were inherently revolutionary. What I liked about Donna Tartt’s approach was that she withheld judgment and basically unfolds the drama in their still-young and unformed lives from their various perspectives, always with Richard narrating and from his own perspective. We readers are also not subjected to a morality tale. We are also not subjected to an imposition of the accepted State moral fable wherein a perpetrator is necessarily punished by his or her conscience (as per Dostoyevsky), or by State law or by Fate’s exacting revenge. In this it is a kind tale. Tragedy though hangs over all like a Damocles sword and there are repercussions. Bunny dies. Julian Morrow reveals himself for what he really is. The twins break. And even Richard redeems himself. Carefully constructed edifices fall. Henry though is and remains heroic and intact. I liked The Secret History a lot and recommend it. Edwin

Donna Tartt's The Secret History is the original American campus novel. When Richard Papen joins an elite group of clever misfits at his New England college, it seems he can finally become the person he wants to be. But the moral boundaries he will cross with his new friends - and the deaths they are responsible for - will change all of their lives forever. The Secret History recounts the terrible price we pay for mistakes made on the dark journey to adulthood.

cass

wow, okay, where to begin?
i will be the first to admit that i struggled to get into this book initially - the first 100-200 pages felt largely purposeless, and i was looking for a clear plot to grip onto, that i know the book had to have had due to praise from others on the plot line. but oh my god, when this book is good, its fucking good. the characters are complex in a way that feels so real and humane, <spoiler> and the development of charles and his addiction and slow fall to insanity was masterfully constructed </spoiler> and came across so perfectly. this for me is the brilliance within donna tartt, her ability to perfectly crete characters like no one else. 
i think because the book was written in the 90s, the air of pseudo intellectualism seemed more captaviating and apparent…. and legit?? in comparison to contemporary campus novels, the deeper story and ideas felt more grounded and genuine, and i feel that the era it was written and the pacing is generally the reason behind this.
julian, to me, was a very puzzling character. he felt so minor - i didn’t really find myself being able to develop a connection or deep affection to him in the way that the classics group did. we were consistently told about this love all 5 of them had felt towards him as the professor, but apart from henry, and potentially francis, i couldn’t really understand how richard (and even the twins?!) had come to develop such strong emotions towards him. i wish we had gotten to see the establishment of that connection more; it felt very…. i don’t even know, but i really wanted more purpose behind richard’s kinship for julian he intensely detailed in the closing chapters of the novel. 
donna tart is a brilliant writer, i have zero doubt in my mind about that. i can very clearly see why it’s so loved, because it truly feels so human, really fucking liked this, would have been higher if it was a bit shorter, i really felt there was a lot of aspects that didn’t necessarily need to be included and made the novel even longer.

Jennifer

Crime and Punishment meets a more messed up version of How To Get Away With Murder season one + homosexuality + Greek history and mythology + sexual taboos 

The Secret History

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